Arlene Foster was absolutely right to say No to EU wording

Monday’s events revealed why the Republic was so adamant on putting the horse before the cart: its opportunist purpose was the age-old nationalist goal of pushing the border back to the Irish Sea.

Hence, the demand for ‘regulatory alignment’ of Northern Ireland with the EU single market and customs union.

Such, inescapably, would create regulatory divergence with Great Britain, necessitating border checks on goods to and from NI.

At a stroke the constitutional and economic integrity of the UK would be subverted.

Thus, the EU border would effectively move to the Irish Sea, entrapping Northern Ireland on the non-UK side of that border.

Moreover, of necessity, our economy would have to align more and more with Dublin’s, at the mercy of ECJ interpreted EU regulations – while the rest of the UK enjoyed liberation from such stifling regulation and foreign control – leaving us an ever increasing enigmatic and diminishing part of the UK to the point where Irish unification within the EU would evolve into the intended reality.

Hence, Arlene Foster was absolutely right to say ‘No’.

It is now imperative that no one backslides into diluting Brexit as the price of saving Mrs May’s blushes in Brussels.

The proposal of ardent Remainer, Ruth Davidson, that ‘regulatory alignment’ should be on a UK-wide basis is constitutionally sound, but equally contains the seeds of defeating Brexit to the point of seeing us remain, even in part, in the single market and the customs union.

The single market and the customs union are the essence of the EU: they bind us to crippling regulation, ECJ control, the four core ‘freedoms’, which deny us control of our own borders, and block us from negotiating our own trade deals.

Our Brexit must be complete, not partial.

As Jacob Rees-Mogg put it, leaving is about regulatory divergence, not alignment, so that we can shape and direct our own nation’s growth and direction.

My vision is for the prosperity of the United Kingdom, all of it. It is for others to decide the direction of their own countries.

The Republic can’t expect the UK to be a proxy when it comes to providing the EU border for them. At the heart of ROI discomfort is the obligation in EU treaties for member states to provide and police the EU’s borders.

Article 77 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) commits to an EU policy with a view to “carrying out checks on persons and efficient monitoring of the crossing of external borders”.

Hence the apoplexy in Dublin at the thought of it becoming responsible under EU law to establish and manage the border.

But that is their problem if the EU thwarts a free trade deal. It is not for the UK to bear that burden, as Dublin would wish, by shifting the border to the Irish Sea.

Acceding to a free trade deal with the UK largely neutralises the border issue.

Thus, Dublin would be better served by pushing for such, instead of trying to be too cute to the point where no deal could result.

Then the Republic really will be the big loser.

• Jim Allister QC is leader of Traditional Unionist Voice and a North Antrim MLA